


The Jackals

by Dusty_Forgotten



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Cannibalism, Drug Use, Gang Violence, Gen, Physical Abuse, Verbal Abuse, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-12 03:42:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2094387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dusty_Forgotten/pseuds/Dusty_Forgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What doesn't kill you, becomes your new chief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is not my usual male Courier, and this is not a good guy. He's abusive to the one who can't defend himself, alternatively nurturing and unconcerned with the Jackals' problems. There's a discussion on this in later chapters.  
> The plot is more of... political backstabbing, than comedy you might expect from the premise, or fluff as later chapters may suggest. There also will be more warnings added, because when working with a character like Nick, I've just got to let it go where it's going to.

The first Jackal came out from the far side of the building, bullets flying (not very accurately), but the Courier’s gun was already drawn, and he popped one shot off in her head, easy. The next was already after him from behind ( _wow_ , he’d never seen _that_ tactic before), and he whipped around to a man panickedly tugging at the jammed bolt on his rifle. The Courier shot him once in the thigh, and when he fell, kicked the rifle away from him, kicked once from under the jaw. He’d take care of this one, in his damn sweet time, after he dealt with the two from the carport- switchblade and a baseball bat, this one was going to be fun. They didn’t expect him to run straight for them; the woman flinched and stopped charging, so he pistol-whipped the switchblade guy, tossed his gun aside, and directed the knife into the man’s own stomach. He gave it one quick push upwards, and pushed him to the ground, popping the snap that kept his cleaver in the sheath on his chest, stalking towards the woman. She held the baseball bat defensively, so he feigned a swing at her right, she blocked, and his left hand darted out to snatch the bat away. She was crying. It was annoying, really, and she barely put up a fight when he pushed her against the wall of the carport and held the cleaver to her throat.

There’s a moment there, her chem-reddened eyes screwed shut and the guy with the knife in his stomach moaning behind them, before the manic smile on the Courier’s face dropped. “ _Really_? Is that all you fuckers’ve got!?”

He grabbed the woman by one of her mohawks and threw her to the ground, stepped on her back, and that made her yelp, and sob louder. “Oh come _on_! I could’ve sniped you fucks from up the road and not wasted my goddamn time, but I thought it would be fuckin’ fun to have a head-to-head for once! This is the fucking fight I get!?” He spied switchblade guy, (it was a short blade, did less damage than the pistol-whip) straining to reach the victor’s own 12.7mm a few feet away. Courier stomped over (the first step on the woman’s back, and she was still fuckng c rying), ground his boot into the man’s hand until he heard a pop accompany the scream, and put the 12.7 back in his holster. “You’re fucking pathetic! A _switchblade_ , you piece of shit?” He kicked the guy in the abdominal wound, knocking out the switchblade barely penetrating, and the man coughed, and curled into the fetal position. “You’re fucking Jackals, you’re supposed to be terrifying, savage cannibals and shit! Where the fuck’s your leader!?”

“You killed her...!” the man gagged out.

“Oh, that bitch?” he asked, motioning broadly with the cleaver to the only one of them dead. “The fucker who went down with one shot!?”

“You shot her in the head!” the woman spat.

“You’d be surprised how many people that doesn’t stop...” he said, lifting the bangs of his unspiked mohawk with the back of the cleaver to reveal the perfect keloid circle. He then pointed the weapon back at her. “Get up.”

She snorted up her mucus and just stared back at him, pleading eyes and childish sounds, and it was really killing his Jet-high (or was it Psycho this time?). He got so much more out of killing rabid, chemmed-up crazies with laser rifles than a couple of stupid wasters who thought they were so bad ‘cause they knocked over a caravan once. “How about this: I give you ten seconds to run, and then I chase you, huh? An-and then,” he whipped around to the unconscious man, laid out on the pavement, face down, “I chop your friend’s arm into tiny pieces- see if that wakes him up- and feed it to Switchblade Guy!” He lunged at the conscious man, who yelped and held up his hands in submission. The Courier wrapped his fingers in the short, filthy red hair, and used the dull end of the cleaver to lift up his lip, exposing the filed-sharp incisors, a Jackal trademark. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, piece a’ cannibal shit?”

That’s when the woman tossed her baseball bat loudly and started running, too scared to make very good time. “Yeah, that’s right! TEN! NINE! EIGHT! SEVEN! Run faster, bitch! SIX! FIVE!” She tripped and fell into the dirt, and the man was turned to her, hand still tangled in the Jackal’s hair, yanking him around carelessly. “FOUR! THREE! Ah, come on! You can do better than that!” He could hear her sobbing from there, and in anger, kicked Switchblade Guy in the stomach again. “Someone put up a fucking fight!”

“Belluuuuuum!” the Jackal shrieked helplessly, and out darted another one of them, white tank top free of blood (what a shame, though not for long), 10mm in hand.

The Courier smiled, dropped Switchblade Guy, and lowered his stance. “Here we go.”

“I don’ wanna fight you.” she said.

“Too bad.”

She nodded to the corpse, gun unmoving in her hold at the hip. “You kill ‘er?”

“Fuck yeah, I did. I’ll kill you too.”

“You kill ‘er, that means you’s in charge.”

“I’s in charge?” he asked uncomprehendingly.

“Ye’h.” She put the gun in its holster.

“Fuck, in that case!” He made a sharp gesture with the cleaver, swiping the air way too close to Switchblade Guy’s face before strapping it away, “You got any chems?”


	2. Chapter 2

“So your name’s... what, Bella?” he asked, wiping the file on the fabric draped around his shoulders (the dead woman’s pants, actually), looking in the mirror as he worked on sharpening the next tooth.

“Bellum.” she corrected, seated on the desk across from him. “Some Latin shit.”

“Ex-slave?” he questioned, running his tongue over the teeth, smiling, and tossing the file aside.

“Ye’h.”

“What’re their names?” He made a vague motion to the rest of the room, the woman with the two mohawks taping a bandage to Switchblade Guy’s stomach, the now-conscious man smoking in the corner. “Hey, you shits!” He waited for them to turn their attention before continuing, “The fuck’re your names?”

The woman in the cute, completely impractical dress mumbled noncommittally, and the guy in the corner tossed his cigarette on the floor. “They call me Bandit. That’s Daisy, there’s Ger-”

“No, I don’t give a fuck about his name. We’re calling him Switchblade.”

“That’s cooler than my real name...” Switchblade admitted, flexing his injured hand.

“So, wait, what’s _your_ name?” Daisy inquired, speaking finally. She had a voice like a little girl.

“I don’t got one.” said the Courier. A bead of hair dye was snaking down his cheek. The red looked like blood. He was thrilled when he heard they had dye, said “ _The yellow makes me look jaundice, been needing to change it_.”

“We gotta call you something.”

“Call me whatever the fuck you want, I don’t have a name.” he said, picking up the bottle of absinthe strapped to his belt and taking a long gulp.

“Okay, Nick.”

“ _Nick?_ ” the Courier, Bellum, and Bandit all returned.

“Well, yeah, like Nickname, but, y’know, shorter...” Daisy defended, “W’ll, I think he looks like a Nick.”

Bellum, Bandit, and Switchblade gave him a contemplative look, then each nodded approvingly. Daisy packaged up what was left of the bandages, and stood to poke at the spitted corpse over their indoor campfire, venting through a sizeable hole in the roof. “I’m hungry. Why couldn’t we have eaten her like we usually do?”

“Oh, _sure_ , eat her fucking raw for all I care. I’d prefer _not_ to catch a degenerative disease, thanks.” Nick shot back, wiping his forehead with his hand, streaking the rivulets back into his hairline. His hand came away sopped in red dye. “How’s this operation work? You got suppliers, you got rules?”

Bellum and Bandit exchanged a look before he replied, “Not really. We mostly just sit around, wait for wasters or caravans to pass through. Though, we don’t hit the caravans so much anymore. They’ve started picking up mercenaries, and we’re too low on ammo to have a shootout.”

One of Nick’s eyebrows was up as he stared at the bulky man; Bandit swallowed, but did not look away. The blue eyes flicked to Bellum, then Daisy, eyes averted, and Switchblade, who also glanced about awkwardly. “Fucking cowards.” He knocked back more of the drink. “No more of that shit. Now on, we hit everything that walks by.”

“Ain’t much...” Bellum muttered.

He cupped a hand dramatically over his ear. “Sorry, hot tits, I didn’t catch that.”

“I s’id, there’s not much. Nobody come through here since Nelson burnt.”

“Then fucking move.”

“Got clean water n’ shelter...” she replied with a shrug.

“Yeah, and going by how much fucking dirt all of you are wearing, clean water isn’t very important.” He finished off the absinthe in one long chug, shaking it for the last drop, and threw the bottle across the room, Switchblade narrowly avoiding. “We leave tomorrow.” He checked the Pip-Boy 2000 he set out on the table. “-And it’s time for the dye to come out.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Relax. I come through here all the time.” Nick raised a hand to wave broadly, and the sniper in the dinosaur’s mouth waved back. “See?”

“Don’t feel right, comin’ straight thru town.” Bellum worried. “Make m’ nervous.”

Bandit pulled at the pauldron of his leather armor. “You’re not the only one. What if we’ve hit one of these guys before?”

“He’s got a point...” Switchblade added, avoiding eye contact with the woman they passed by.

“Yeah? I’ve got a point on the end of this fuckin’ bowie knife.” Nick said, drawing it from the back of his belt and holding it towards the youngest man. “Don’t mean jack shit.”

Bandit grabbed the knife away by the blade, not worried for his thick gloves. “Would you quit waving that thing around? You’re drawing attention.”

He arched a dark brown eyebrow and snatched it back. “Hot tits, people ‘round here would know something was up if I _didn’t_ draw attention. Just keep your fuckin’ mouths shut.”

“Can’t ‘magine talkin’ ‘bout this helps nothin’.” Bellum agreed.

Nick looked over his shoulder at her as he led the raider parade, and used the tip of the knife to lift his upper lip. “I’m talkin’ about the teeth.”

At that they all silenced- _finally_ , the newly named Nick thought, _I’m too tired for this shit_. They passed a man as they were exiting the town, a white-haired fellow in rags who squinted a little too inquisitively. The Courier gave him a full smile, sharpened. The man relaxed at that.

There was another mile or so of silence, Daisy dragging her baseball bat behind her, Bellum picking under her nails with that file. Daisy moaned dramatically, “I’m tiiiiireeeeeed!”

Nick stopped and turned over his shoulder, and with the look he gave her, Bellum had a hand on her gun. He shrugged amicably. “Yeah, sure. Prospector's Den isn’t far.” he mumbled, and kept walking. Bellum and Bandit exchanged a cautious look, and followed.

The Prospector’s Den was further than what Bellum would have described as “not far”, but close enough to fit Bandit’s definition fine. Nick tugged open the gate and said, “There’s probably going to be- you guessed it- prospectors inside. Nothing we can’t handle. Back me up if you’re not a pussy.”

Bandit and Daisy ran in headlong, Bellum just after, slower, while Switchblade spent a moment nervously considering the likelihood of being shot versus Nick shooting him if he didn’t go in, and the danger figured out in Nick’s favour. Their new leader checked the bolt on his rifle- some plinking thing painted a flat black- and headed in himself. Bandit was ducked behind an overturned picnic table, in a shootout with two of the prospectors- or, it would be a shootout, if he had any ammo left. Nick aimed down his nightscope from back near the entrance, and popped one off in the guy’s head. Bandit took the cease-fire as an opportunity to yank the guy off of Daisy, and he looked like he was going to pound his brains in- if she hadn’t have grabbed her bat and beat him to it. Nick had a shot lined up for the last guy, but Bellum came out from behind a rock, one sneak-shot to the neck, done.

“Stole my kill.” Nick muttered, reloading. Switchblade cautiously appeared from behind a rock, and darted back behind when the leader glanced at him. Nick didn’t say anything, instead looking up at the ex-slave, standing in wait. He motioned vaguely to her 10mm. “Remind me to pick up a silencer for that thing.” He slung the rifle over his shouder and turned to the other two Jackals, Bandit standing helplessly while Daisy _liquified_ a prospector. “Hey!” Nick yelled.

She kicked the severed arm across the room for good measure, and glared at him, infuriated, then blanched and glanced away. He continued in a surprisingly gentle tone, “Cool it, will you? There’s more inside,” he inclined his head to the shack behind them, “don’t you worry.”

He plucked the 12.7 from his hip, and with one check over his shoulder- Bandit pilfering a cowboy repeater from one of the dead prospectors, Switchblade looking self-conscious about that dinky little knife of his, Daisy scrumptiously rabid and covered in blood from her ripped-up tights to the tip of her splintering baseball bat, and Bellum with that frozen stare of hers- before he kicked in the door.


	4. Chapter 4

“ _I have all my fingers, the knife goes chop chop chop. If I miss the space between, my fingers will come off. If I hit my fingers, the blood will soon come out. But all the same I play this game, ‘cause that’s what it’s all about._ ” Switchblade sang, and planted his knife in the wood of the picnic table next to his thumb. He smiled; he was getting better.

“Five-finger fillet?”

The Jackal jumped a bit at Nick’s voice. He thought he heard someone come out, but assumed it was Bandit out for a smoke, or Bellum trying to get away from the noise of everyone making jerky. A real stove; what a luxury. “Y-yeah.”

He took the seat across and pulled the bowie knife from the back of his belt. “Mind if I show off? Used to be pretty good.”

Switchblade shook his head. “Go ahead.”

Nick stuck the knife in front of his thumb, between the thumb and index, back to the other side of the thumb, between index and middle, on like that. Switchblade just went from gap to gap, not back to the side of his thumb every time. Nick’s way seemed harder- especially with a knife that big. His first pass was a reasonable speed, second impressive, and third outright terrifying. He jabbed the clipped tip into the table and crossed his arms. “It’s a neat little parlor trick, nice to take bets on if people catch you hustling pool.” He nudged the blade with one finger. “Think you can handle something bigger?”

“I can’t even go that fast with my switchblade...” the kid mumbled, but took it anyway. He tapped it slowly to each of the gaps between his fingers, back the other way, just a hair harder the next time, a little quicker the next. It wasn’t impressive, but it was accurate.

“Good. Practice is all. Tell you what,” he said, taking off his belt and unthreading the gigantic knife’s sheath from it, “keep it.”

Switchblade nearly caught his finger that time. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I already got Chopper here.” He tapped the cleaver on his chest. “You’ll be a little less useless if you got something to really fight with.”

“I-...” He ran his fingers along the blade, hefty, but elegantly shaped. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” He stood up. “Oh hey, longshot but, you got any absinthe?”

Switchblade shook his head, childishly. “I don’t drink.”

“Got it.” He started to walk back towards the door Bandit was currently emerging from, then turned back around. “What about Psycho? Or- or, Jet would work. I mean, I’m good on Mentats, but I guess I’ll take more of those until I can get my hands on some Psycho. And there’s never enough Med-X, I say.”

Switchblade shook his head again. “I don’t do drugs, either.”

“Shit.” Nick grumbled, and turned back.

It was Switchblade’s turn to stop him. “Wait! I, uh, I think Daisy might have some Psycho.”

“Thanks, Switch!” he smiled, surprisingly tender with those teeth, and went inside.

**Author's Note:**

> Friendly reminder not to feel too bad, because they're all terrible people you would kill in-game without a second thought.


End file.
